By the time you read this, I will 8000 miles away, on a little Fisheries Protection vessel the Pharos 2, just off South Georgia. Little heard of since Argentinian ‘scrap metal merchants’ sparked off the Falklands War in 1982 by hoisting their flag over the disused Whaling Station at Grytviken; South Georgia and Antarctica are rarely out of the environmental news these days.

The Nation’s heart went out to the South Georgia Albatross chick in Sir David Attenborough’s magnificent Blue Planet 2 filmed full of plastics, and now the island’s penguin population is also under threat. Around 300,000 king penguins live on this remote, mostly uninhabited island, which together with the neighbouring South Sandwich Islands, are a British sub-Antarctic Overseas Territory. A quarter of the world’s penguins are by that means British citizens.

Yet a report this week suggested that Climate Change is driving the meeting point between the warm and cold waters of the Antarctic and sub-Antarctica, which currently lies close to South Georgia, further South, away from established penguin colonies, who depend on them for survival. Rats leaving British and Norwegian whaling ships over several centuries resulted in an infestation of the islands. Retreating glaciers then allowed them to spread across the island, with disastrous consequences for the rare South Georgia Pippit and destruction of 95% of the native bird population. Only now, as a result of a multi-million pound rat eradication programme is the native birdlife beginning to recover. And there’s been a debate in parliament recently about the Patagonian Toothfish, which is also under threat.

So at the invitation from the Governor of the Falklands I will be joining British Antarctic Survey scientists, Foreign Office officials and others, on an expedition to South Georgia to see for ourselves, and then promote greater attention to the islands, their delicate environment, and Britain’s obligation to protect them. For example, there is a current proposal, the privately funded Discovery 100 Project, which would bring together heritage protection and cutting edge Antarctic science to create a scientific research station in and around Grytviken. And there is work to be done to enhance the protection of marine areas not just around South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, but right across the Southern and Antarctic Oceans.

It’s remote, largely uninhabited, and wholly inaccessible. But Britain should be proud of all we are doing to preserve the heritage and biodiversity of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; we should be immensely proud of the superb scientific contribution of the British Antarctic Survey; and we should be doing all we can to preserve and enhance this remote British territory, which is of such vast importance to the environmental health of the Globe.

No matter what your view about Brexit, I hope that you will be ready to agree that the PM is playing a pretty canny hand at it. The terms laid out in her Lancaster House speech, reiterated in Florence and fleshed out in the so well-drafted Mansion House speech last Friday have been clear and consistent.

We will leave the EU as a result of the people voting to do so. That will be 12 months from now, although there will then be a further implementation period. We will leave the Single Market and Customs Union, without which we would not in effect be leaving at all; we will regain control of our laws by liberating ourselves from the European Court of Justice, and we will regain control of immigration, albeit making a small concession with regard to EU immigrants who arrive here during the transition period. She remains firm that there will be no ‘hard border’ between Northern Ireland and the Republic in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement, although the details and exact working of that still need to be fleshed out.

All of that is now pretty plain, and has the great merit of being fairly pragmatic and giving neither the Remainers nor the extreme Brexiteers exactly what they want, while keeping both camps moderately happy. It was a great relief to see Dominic Grieve and Jacob Rees-Mogg side by side welcoming the speech. That alone must be a triumph of conciliatory politics, and the PM is to be congratulated for it.

So if the final terms of our departure from the EU are as laid out in the Mansion House speech, then I think most people will be (perhaps a shade reluctantly) ready to accept it as the best deal we could possibly hope to achieve under the circumstances. My concern now turns to the EU 27, who must unanimously agree to these terms. Will they? Who knows? If they do not, then we will leave the EU anyhow, and will no doubt use these terms as the basis of our continuing relationship with our European cousins. After all that is as much in their best interests as in ours (or perhaps even more so).

I still take the view that leaving with ‘no deal’ would actually be perfectly workable, and that the threat that we might do so should be enough to force the EU to face the realities of our departure. I was much encouraged in that view by Sir James Dyson’s remarks last week. Dyson, of course, are large employers locally, and make a huge contribution to the local economy. It is Sir James’s view that he imports large numbers of vacuum cleaners and the rest from his factories in the Far East on WTO terms. Dyson are nonetheless one of the largest white goods suppliers across the EU.

So I feel quietly optimistic about the way the negotiations are going. We will leave in 12 months, and the runes are beginning to look very hopeful of a friendly and prosperous relationship with the EU thereafter alongside a free and economically successful future for our great Nation.

It will not be easy for Oxfam to recover from the devastating sex scandal currently engulfing it. But then again, perhaps we need to consider whether we prefer charities, Non-Governmental Organisations, funded by voluntary donations to deliver essential overseas humanitarian aid. Or do we prefer it to be done by taxpayers through the absurd legally binding 0.7% of GDP which we currently spend on overseas aid.

After all, most NGOs do outstandingly good work. There was some concern a few years ago about the percentage of donations being used by them for central administration. Of the £30 million raised by the BBC Children in Need project in 2006, for example, £3million went to cover the costs of the programmes. Cancer Research that year raised £300million from public donations, but spent more than £70 million in the process. Similarly, the NSPCC received £90 million but spent £18million. The top 500 fundraising charities spent on average 9% of their total expenditure on fundraising and publicity that year.

There are 195,289 charities registered in the UK, which collectively raise and spend some £80 Billion. Together they employ more than 1 million staff. In England and Wales there are 1939 active charities focused on children, 581 charities trying to find a cure for cancer, 354 charities for birds, 255 charities for animals, 81 charities for people with Alcohol problems and 69 charities fighting Leukaemia. Amongst overseas aid charities, Oxfam spends £368 Million a year; Christian Aid £95 million, ActionAid £49million, CAFOD £49 million and Care International £39 million., That is without mentioning War on Want, World Vision, Concern Worldwide and Comic Relief.

Oxfam spends £20.3million annually on campaigns and advocacy (2013/14 annual report). Last year they raised £385.5 million; and of every £10 raised, £6.34 is spent on ‘saving lives.’ So NGOs are demonstrably better than payments to often corrupt foreign governments or rulers, but some discretion is still needed.

An enormous part of our Aid spending has in the past gone via the EU, a yet more questionable way of doing it, since, of course there is no direct national benefit from it. The EU has earmarked $68 Billion for aid between 2014 and 2020 (although thankfully we will be well out of it by then.), plus the $32 Billion spent by the European Development Fund. Of all of that £1.3 Billion comes directly from the UK, out of the £12.1 Billion we spend over all. Yet the money spent by the EU and EDF is even less accountable than that of the UK, and there have been consistent reports of money being badly mis-spent. Last year, for example, EDF gave £400Million of British cash to fund projects in Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and sending officials to the Caribbean to discuss renewable energy. A total of £152,293, according to the Daily Express was handed over to projects including trapeze, acrobatics and juggling in Tanzania as part of a ‘Fit for Life Scheme.’

So Oxfam may not be great in some respects, but it’s a great deal preferable to the EU, or indeed our own DFID.

Sunday: Up to London late after busy Constituency week. Train delayed, taxi gets lost and lifts in my block of flats out of order necessitating 5 stories hike. Probably very good for me.

Monday: 9 am Eurostar to Brussels. One of most civilised ways to travel. As a member of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, two days of talks about defence and the West. Interesting to see perspectives of other nations, such as Germany, whose ‘military caveats’ mean, amongst other things, that they cannot fight at night.... Followed by an interminable discussion about EU relations with NATO after Brexit. 80% of NATOs funding comes from non-EU countries. EU should in my view, focus on trade, and leave defence to NATO. I say so, which does not endear me to the Europhile audience.

Wednesday: After a morning’s discussions, train to Parliament to catch up. Black Tie dinner at Trinity House, of which I am a Younger Brother, with Wilts explorer Sir David Hempleman-Adams as my guest. Walk to St Paul’s with him after dinner for a slightly squiffy selfie. Also Hempie’s not much good at map reading!

Thursday: Various meetings in Parliament, then train home.

Friday: Sharp-suited young men from Lidl fail to convince me that we need one of their stores on a greenfield site at the edge of Malmesbury. I promise to oppose it, which they do not like very much. They could take some lessons in PR from the wonderful travelling showmen whose annual lunch at the Swindon Hilton (just inside my constituency) is next on the agenda. What a lovely, straightforward, honest, decent, and generally cheerful bunch they really are. The Scarrott family from Royal Wootton Bassett are very old friends. They have run the local fairs for generations. A fine bit of old England, and ‘worth a guinea a minute’, unlike the Lidl PR lads.

Saturday: Surgeries in Cricklade and Malmesbury yield their usual mixed crop of cases. Especially impressed by one gentleman, whose son was killed many years ago, and is now keen to campaign to stop the same thing happening again. I vow to help in any way I can. Dinner is near Tetbury with a quaint old literary society celebrating RS Surtees, the Victorian author of Jorrocks' Jaunts and Jollities, amongst so many other things…. Decent, honest traditional people, if mildly eccentric and a little politically incorrect!

Sunday: Lunch with friends near Compton Bassett and a desperate effort to deal with paperwork.

A myriad of different experiences- from Brussels, to Parliament, Trinity House, the Showmen’s Lunch, the Surtees dinner at Chavenage and so many other experiences sharpens judgement about people, events and issues. It helps to sort the sheep from the goats, to recognise the things which are good and old and true from those which are downright unconvincing. Lidl take note.

It’s been a pretty torrid few weeks in Parliament, so I was looking forward to a few days in North Wiltshire. Here’s a flavour of it.

I was very glad to be able to persuade Lyneham’s Colonel Ed Heal that the planned Motor Car events on the old runway at Lyneham were deeply unwelcome, and risked damaging the excellent relations the Defence Technical Training College have with local people. I am not sure he needed much persuasion, and they will not now happen. I am glad that other events will continue on the base, such as essential training for our police, and I wholly agreed that the little Go-kart track could not be heard from any distance and should continue mainly as a recreation for the troops on the base.

Lyneham provides 800 civilian jobs, and makes a huge contribution to the local economy and way of life. Working with them harmoniously (as we always do) is vitally important. Just remember that we might have had a Theme Park, a jumbo jet refuelling depot, the main helicopter base for all three services, or a variety of other uses any of which would have been massively disruptive to the local area. We are extremely fortunate to have the Technical College, and indeed the REME Battalions which will be based there.

Then it was on to speak at the Swindon Chamber of Commerce lunch in the excellent Doubletree Hilton Hotel just over Junction 16 (but still in North Wiltshire). It all went well, and resulted in an invitation to speak to the Chamber in the PM’s constituency in Maidenhead in April. Hope Theresa approves!

A nip down the Motorway to Bristol, to attend the South West Board of the Conservative Party, and a final visit to my doctor’s surgery in Yatton Keynell completed a rather satisfactory circumnavigation of the patch. Surgeries in Calne and Royal Wootton Bassett yielded their usual spectrum of cases, some of which I am able to help, to some of which I have to admit defeat. (I hope it’s more than 50% of the former.) Launching the new 55 Bus Service in Royal Wootton Bassett High Street, a meeting in County Hall to do battle on behalf of a constituent whose house floods thanks to a drain whose ownership is disputed, a meeting with Green Square Housing Association to discuss myriad matters about decent social housing in the area; these and several other local events together with a general ‘clearing of the decks’ keeps my half-term week pretty busy.

Being away from the great affairs of State allows a bit of proportion to enter into one’s view of it all. With regard to both Brexit and Northern Ireland, frankly I wish they would just ‘get on with it ‘. And I am glad to have had just a little time off to do some reading and writing, take a few walks in the chilly early spring sunshine, and play with our new 8 week old puppy. Aww…